I, The Jury

My lord, members of the jury, the great Internet public, we are gathered here today to put Gilbert Adair on trial for several counts of high treason, attempted intellectual murder, constantly beating his few funny jokes to death, being generally mean-spirited, and above all, this court is to determine a legal precedent: whether Adair’s book The Act of Roger Murgatroyd should be considered a crime in itself.

To determine this, it is best to review the evidence. The Act of Roger Murgatroyd was marketed as a hilarious send-up of Agatha Christie and her contemporaries. It contains a locked-room puzzle, when Raymond Gentry, a foul-mouthed gossip columnist, is shot to death inside a locked room, with the door locked, the windows barred, etc. This all takes place at the snowed-in country house of Colonel and Mrs. ffoulkes, who send for a retired Scotland Yard man to help solve the crime.